Theology

The Old Testament and gospel readings for Epiphany
function as point and counterpoint. Isaiah offers a word of great comfort to
those who have been so long in darkness. Impoverished as the hearers have been,
honor and fortune are on their way. It's a message of rejoicing: the light that
has dawned will make all who see it radiant.

Nigel Warburton is a senior lecturer for Britain's Open University, a
service originated by the BBC to provide education via television to
adults who had not gone on to higher education. A Little History of Philosophy
is focused on that audience and on anyone else who knows little about
philosophy except that it is, as Warburton says, "impenetrable and
obscure."

Reflections on the Lectionary

Century Marks

Inferno

Feb 12, 2015

During his only visit to America, theologian Karl Barth in 1962 visited three prisons: Bridewell House of Correction in Chicago, San Quentin in California, and Rikers Island in New York. He called Bridewell “Dante’s inferno on earth” and said it was a contradiction of the wonderful message on the Statue of Liberty. Barth wondered aloud why theologians weren’t denounc­ing the deplorable conditions in Amer­ican prisons, calling out Reinhold Niebuhr in particular (Jessica DeCou, “The First Community: Barth’s Amer­ican Prison Tours,” in Karl Barth and the Making of Evangelical Theology, Eerdmans).